It is strange that of the many Egyptologists who have travelled in Egypt, only two, Lepsius and Golénischeff, have visited this spot. It may be that the statement of the old Baedeker, which says that the wandering Ababdeh tribes “assume a hostile attitude” to travellers, has confined them to the banks of the Nile; or perhaps the reported antics of the much-maligned camel have induced them to leave unvisited this pearl of the past. For that matter, however, the place might be reached upon the back of the patient ass, there being water at Bir Abâd, and, for the last few years, at the temple itself. When one sees this building, one of the best preserved of all the Egyptian temples, one is amazed at the lack of enterprise which has caused it to be uncared for, unprotected, and unvisited for all these years. A few mining engineers and prospectors alone have seen the shrine; and, since they have disfigured its walls with their names, one could wish that they too had stayed at home.

INSCRIPTIONS AND DRAWINGS IN AND NEAR THE TEMPLE OF WADY ABÂD.

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Pl. xxviii.

The little temple consists of a rectangular hall excavated in the rock, the roof being supposed to be supported by four square pillars, though in reality these also are part of the living rock. At the far end there are three shrines in which the statues of the gods are carved. In front of this hall there is a built portico, the roof of which rests upon four columns with lotus-bud capitals. One enters from the north, up the slope of fallen stones and driven sand, and so passes into the shade of the portico. Through a hole in the roof, where a slab of stone has fallen in, one may look up at the towering rocks which overhang the building. Then, through a beautifully ornamented doorway, one passes into the dimness of the rock-cut hall, where one may be conscious that the whole height of the hill rests above one’s head. Both this hall and the portico are richly decorated with coloured reliefs, and in the inner portions of the temple one stands in wonder at the brightness of the colours in the scenes which are seen on all sides. It has been said that the brilliancy of the painting in the temple of Amonhotep III. at El Kab is surprising; but here it is still fresher, and has even more admirably held its own against the assaults of time. We see the Pharaoh smiting down his negro and Asiatic enemies in the presence of Amen Ra and Horus of Edfu; we watch him as he makes offerings to the gods; and to the ceiling the eye is attracted by the great vultures with spread wings which there hover above one, depicted in radiant colours rendered more radiant by contrast with the browns and the yellows of the scenery outside. In the niches at the end of the hall the gods sit in serenity; and, though these figures have been damaged almost beyond recognition by pious Musslemans, there still clings around them their old majesty, and still one may find something solemn in their attitude, so that one almost pays heed to the warning inscribed on the doorway that a man must be twice purified before entering the little sanctuary where they sit.

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